This is Page 1 of 1 - the best of October 2009!
posted: October 31st, 2009

This - the only page - begins with October 10th and takes you through October 12th, a trip to Kusatsu, in Gunma Prefecture. Unfortunately that's the only trip we made this month, the only scenic thing that we did. Click on any thumbnail to begin.

Begin October 10th

&nbsp On October 10th Kazuya and I went to Kusatsu, in Gunma Prefecture. This was our fifth trip to Kusatsu. We were hoping to see some good fall colors. Last year when we went there in October we saw good fall colors, so we were looking forward to seeing the same again this year. The first photo here is Kazuya standing in front of Yubatake. The 2nd shot is Yubatake, in the center of Kusatsu Town. This "thing" has natural hot water flowing through it. The 3rd shot is one of 18 Free Hot Spring Baths in Kusatsu. All of these free ones are small, probably originally built to accommodate the local population. This one is Nikawa No Yu, or Nikawa Hot Spring.

&nbsp The first shot here is Nikawa No Yu from the outside - the left 1/2 is for males and the right 1/2 is for females. The 2nd and 3rd shots are in Sainokawara Park. There is a huge outdoor hot bath (Rotenboro) in this park which we went to, this is the trail through the park and it also goes to the Rotenboro. The waterfall in the 2nd photo is hot water. The 3rd photo is where some very hot water comes up out of the ground.

&nbsp On Sunday, October 11th, the first thing I did was to take a photo of the poster in the Youth Hostel - in case you can't recognize it, this is a shot of Dicentra peregrina (Bleeding Heart). I wish we could find a place where it looks like this - maybe next year. Our plan for the day was to go to Mt. Shirane and hike around that area and see some fine fall colors. We took the bus to the top of the road and this 2nd photo is what it looked like - CLOUDS! So, we didn't even bother to hike to the summit of Mt. Shirane, we just hiked around the area. The 3rd shot shows the ponds near the highway.

&nbsp Oops! Here come the clouds here too! It was down to 2 degrees C (36 degrees F) and it had snowed a bit during the night. It was quite windy and it was COLD! We were wearing every piece of cold weather gear which we had brought with us and, if you can make out my face in the first photo, I still look cold (because I was!). The 3rd photo shows you the snow sticking to the ground here. We experienced a few snowflakes falling out of the clouds, but just a few.

&nbsp We hiked from here to the top of the Ropeway, planning to take it down to it's bottom and then hike from that area the rest of the way down the mountain. On the hike from the ponds to the Ropeway top we found some Gaultheria miqueliana plants. These white berries are so very photogenic, also note the red mosaic pattern in the leaves. The 2nd shot shows what it looked like on the hike - clouds and not many people, and the people we did see quickly disappeared into the clouds. Well, due to the high winds, the Ropeway was not operating. We had to hike back to the bus stop and take a bus down to the bottom of the Ropeway. We then hiked from there back to Kusatsu Town - a hike of about 2 hours. The 3rd photo shows an active volcanic area which we passed by.

&nbsp The first photo here shows some beautiful red and black Viburnum sp. berries. The 2nd shot shows a small ridge up the mountain from us. Note the difference in vegetation type between the ridge and the surrounding land. And, the ridge has some nice fall colors on it. The 3rd shot is that same ridge, but I have zoomed in on it a bit more. The zooming in helps accentuate the fall colors. You'll note that it is still cloudy up there higher on the mountain.

&nbsp Here are some additional fall color shots. The first 2 shots show me walking down the trail. The first shot is weird in that the trail is in this small valley. It also shows some pretty good fall colors and a nice fall sky. We are now down below the lowest of the clouds which plagued us earlier in the day. The 3rd shot is looking down the mountain to see the fall colors below us. The colors are not as good as they were last year when we were here. Apparently the peak of the colors happened earlier this year - before our visit.

&nbsp Here are 2 shots showing pretty decent fall colors. The 3rd shot shows an amazing sight - we came around a curve in the trail and saw this steam coming up out of the ground. It's so weird how this steam just pops out of the ground at seemingly random places in this area.

&nbsp We continued down the trail and found an old road which took us closer to that steam area shown just above. It is Man-dai-kou, apparently a place where sulfur was mined at some point in the past. This is not the main mine, this is just a hot pool, we did not go to the actual old mine, the danger signs were too prevalent. The sulfur fumes are terrible smelling and can easily reach levels which are dangerous to the health. We later learned that this water comes out of the ground at 96 degrees C (205 degrees F) and at the rate of 5,000 liters per minute.

&nbsp On October 11th, Monday, we came home. Our bus, however, was not until 2:00 PM so we went to this large Hot Spring bath "Ohtaki No Yu" for about 3 and 1/2 hours before we went to catch our bus. This nice fall color shot was just outside of the hot spring. The 2nd shot is the Hot Spring sign. The 3rd shot shows an amazing bridge construction site which we saw from the bus window on the way home. And, that's the final shot from our trip to Kusatsu.

&nbsp Here are links to separate web pages. The first shows some photos of our DVD Collection, an AVI Movie of our Home Theater System and 9 photos of our Sharp Aquos TV. The 2nd shows our entire DVD collection in DVD Profiler (if you're asking yourself what might be good to rent for the weekend). The DVD's will be sorted by date purchased. You can click on the "Title" Column to sort that way if you desire.